Student led conferences

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2001 : August : 14

Student led conferences
By Debbie

Hi Stacy,
It's good to hear that you're planning this now...It's work, but a great learning experience for the kids as well. I didn't do SLC til third quarter (First quarter was parent teacher, with the child in attendance,
sent home a parent goals for their child sheet at the beginning of the year and used that as a spring board for the conference; Second & Fourth quarters were open house/pot luck dessert-work samples,etc were available for families to check out,as well as assessments I'd done).
My kids essentially keep all their work at school, in folders, spirals or 3 ring notebooks. The portfolio

pieces chosen are put into a large plastic tub that has hanging files, one per child. Math and Science logs were bound each month or so, but before hand, each child would take out one or two problems, activity recordings, or observation, etc. that showed growth, best effort, or a favorite...I'd choose one or two as well. After each author study, the kids chose their favorite book and illustrated a page using the style of the illustrator. Responses were typed and after displaying in the room, these were included in the 'showcase portfolio'. Draft and published writing was also chosen by the child and myself to include. As we were getting ready for conferences, I'd ask the class to brainstorm what good writers, readers, and mathematicians do...the lists are charted and the children use them as they look over their collection of work to share at conference. They find characteristics that fit their work and efforts and note them on a sheet attached to the work. If you need additional clarification, forms, samples, etc., just email or post again. The process of having the children identify the characteristics in their works really brought the learning to another level...they were aware of what they'd learned and could explain it to their parents... ;-D